Please join RECAMFT in celebrating our President, Doreen Van Leeuwen, for winning CAMFT's highest award - the Mary Riemersma Distinguished Clinical Member Award. From the CAMFT website: A Distinguished Clinical Member is a clinical member who has given outstanding service in the field of marriage and family therapy.
The reception will be held just prior to the May 3rd general speaker meeting from 10:30 - 11 am. There will be a presentation about Doreen's honor starting at 10:45 am. All are welcome. Registration is not required. Please join us!
From her nomination by Laura Strom:
"As the Chair of RECAMFT's Disaster Response Committee, when the Tubbs Fire hit Santa Rosa in October 2017, Doreen Van Leeuwen stepped up quickly. On October 19, 2017 RECAMFT offered a free training for the community led by Doreen entitled, "Brief disaster response training for helping professionals". RECAMFT filmed her presentation, and uploaded it onto their website for anyone to view. The training was given a second time. Between both events, over 150 therapists and other professionals received Doreen's training.
...We feel very fortunate to have her, as she was a former President of Inland
Empire CAMFT. Her interest in disaster and critical incidents has served us well, as she has been interviewed by the local newspaper on numerous occasions as an expert. Our newspaper, The Press Democrat, wound up receiving a Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on the NorCal fires. They have done many articles on the mental health effects of wildfire disasters, and Doreen is quoted heavily as an MFT expert, making all of us look good. She also spoke at a local radio station on the topic of recovery from wildfire disaster.
Starting in December 2017 Doreen spear-headed weekly grief groups for the public to attend. She, and Laura Strom, together represented RECAMFT at a fund-raising effort started by RECAMFT. Eventually, many other groups joined, along with a professional fund-raiser, Healthcare Foundation. Doreen and Laura helped shape the response by the mental health community to the disaster of the October 2017 fires. This included training over 300 mental health workers in Skills for Psychological Recovery. LMFTs who attended have been given the opportunity to both speak to groups, and treat fire survivors, and be paid, thanks to fundraising efforts which have thus far raised over $1.3 million dollars to provide services for our hurting community. Furthermore, the Wildfire Mental Health Collaborative (WMHC), as our group came to be known, has created a website called MySonomaStrong.com and public service announcements to encourage people to check it out. The website helps people assess their symptoms to see if they might benefit from professional help, and is available in English and Spanish. It sends those who need services to the NAMI Warmline (another agency who is part of WMHC).
...Doreen has played a vital, and critical role in Sonoma county's fire recovery efforts, and made LMFTs look fantastic while doing it. Her deep caring, and interest in disaster and critical incident response, along with being an active RECAMFT member came at just the right time for the Santa Rosa community..."
Photo: CAMFT Executive Director, Nabil El-Ghoroury applauds Doreen's award.
Disability Accommodation: To request an accommodation for a disability, please email therapy@recamft.org.
Grievances: direct grievances to therapy@recamft.org, and/or the chapter president at recamftpresident@gmail.com.
Map to Odd Fellows Hall here.
